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Formula One was first defined by the Commission Sportive Internationale of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile as the premier single seater racing category in worldwide motorsport in 1946, and was initially known variously as Formula I. When the 500c formula was internationally recognised as Formula 3 in 1950 it was never titled as "Formula C" so the three International Formulae was "officially" titled Formula 1 which was largely based on pre-WWII regulations defined by engine capacity. The regulation expected to bring a new balance between supercharged and normally aspirated cars. Non supercharged 4.5 litre pre-war Grand Prix cars were allowed to race against the pre-war 1.5 litre supercharged 'voiturettes' while pre-war supercharged 3 litre Grand Prix cars were banned. The first race under the new regulations was the Turin Grand Prix held on 1st September 1946, won by Achille Varzi in an Alfa Romeo 158 Alfetta. Championships for drivers or constructors were not introduced immediately. 20 races were held from late Spring to early Autumn in Europe although not all of these were considered significant. Most competitive cars came from Italy, particularly Alfa Romeo. Races saw pre-war heroes like Rudolf Carracciola, Manfred Von Brauchitsch and Tazio Nuvolari end their careers, while drivers like Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio rose to the front. In 1950 the FIA responded with the first ever official World Championship for Drivers using the Formula One rules and was to be held across six of the major Grands Prix of Europe, and was in effect a formalization of what had already been developing in Grand Prix racing during the previous years. Italian teams of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati were best positioned to dominate the early years. Other national manufacturers - such as the French manufacturer Talbot and the British BRM - competed. The Italian and German factory teams in those days often employed 2 to 3 drivers whose nationality was the same as the team's and at least 1 foreign driver; for example the Alfa Romeo team in 1950 consisted of Italian drivers Nino Farina, Luigi Fagioli and Piero Taruffi and Fangio. Alfa Romeo dominated all before them in the 1950 season, winning every race in the championship with the pre-war "Alfetta" 158s. The sole exception was the Indianapolis 500, which was part of the championship although not run to Formula One regulations. The race would never be important for Formula One and was no longer part of the championship after 1960 with Fangio taking the championship with the Alfa Romeo 159, which is not to be confused with the hatchback. Formula One was downgraded to 1.5 litre non supercharged engines which was essentially the Formula Two rules in 1961 and was a formula which would remain until 1966. In 1967, Lotus introduced the 49 which was powered by the Ford-Cosworth DFV V8 engine that was to dominate Formula One. By the late 1960s, 'overseas' races outside Europe like the South African Grand Prix formed about a third of the championship in any year with overseas races usually falling at the start or end of the season, which has continued to this day. 1968 was the year that former double World Champion Jim Clark died in a Formula 2 race in Germany. This was a tragedy for the sport and many of its fans and within the next few years many of the drivers campaigned for more safety at races to stop more deaths happening. In 1973, Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson raced each other while Jackie Stewart was supported by François Cevert at Tyrrell. Stewart took the Driver's title but at the United States Grand Prix, Cevert crashed and was killed instantly. 1975 saw Lella Lombardi score the first points by a woman in a Formula One championship for 6th place at the Spanish Grand Prix. The most radical innovation of 1976 was the 6-wheeled Tyrrell P34. The P34 was a good car which won the Swedish Grand Prix but it was not superior to the best. The incident at Fuji put the Enzo Ferrari Niki Lauda relationship officially becoming the second driver of the Scuderia Ferrari and signed for Brabham, having taken the title easily before Enzo Ferrari refused him a car for the end of the season. Tyrrell's season was disastrous because of Goodyear becoming too busy to continue to develop the unique small tires required by the P34. Lauda pipped his teammate Alain Prost to the title by a mere half point in 1984, the closest ever finish in Formula One history. Turbos were banned in 1989 and regulations only allowing engines up to 3.5 litres were put in their place. The dominance of McLaren-Honda continued with Prost winning the title in 1989 and Ayrton Senna in 1990 and 1991. The V10 and V12 engines produced by the Japanese manufacturer proved to be just as good an engine as the turbo V6 before them. The championship was marred however by the fierce rivalry between the two men, culminating in a pair of clashes at the Japanese Grands Prix. By 1994, the previous death in Formula One was nearly a decade past that of Elio de Angelis during testing in 1986. There had been several horrifying accidents such as Nelson Piquet and Gerhard Berger or Martin Donnelly but no fatalities. At the San Marino Grand Prix weekend this belief was crushed completely with the serious injuries sustained by Rubens Barrichello and the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying and Senna in the race. By 1995, things had settled down somewhat. The downgraded 3-litre formula had no effect of the domination of the Renault V10 and Michael Schumacher took his second Driver's title and Benetton their first Constructor's title. In 1997, another son of a Formula One racing legend took the title for Williams once again as Jacques Villeneuve became the 4th driver to take the Formula One championship. Villeneuve only clinched the Drivers' Championship at the final race. Once again, Schumacher collided with his championship rival but unlike 1994 events turned against him. Schumacher not only found himself knocked out of the race but was found to have deliberately tried to run Villeneuve. Schumacher was stripped of second place in the Championship and was disgraced. Renault withdrew from Formula One at the end of 1997. Villeneuve was out of the picture but Schumacher was in contention when he crashed and broke his leg at Silverstone (Ouch! That is very nasty!). His team mate Eddie Irvine eventually lost to Mika Häkkinen by only two points, but his efforts contributed to Ferrari's first constructors championship since 1983. After the banning of turbocharged engines in 1989, V10 became the most popular engine configuration in Formula One because of the engine offering the best compromise between power and fuel consumption. From the 1998 season onwards, all competing teams had V10 engines in their cars. V12's were powerful but thirsty, and vice versa for V8s. 2000 saw the grids of Formula One start to revert to normal as Jordan rapidly faded out of sight. While Ferrari celebrated their dominance in 2001, the sport itself was seen by many to be in trouble. Prost and Arrows closed their doors for good. Benetton was no more because of the team having been completely bought out by Renault. In 2004 Schumacher and Ferrari returned to almost total dominance of the championships in the first thirteen races. A new race in Bahrain made its debut in April and another new race in China debuted in September. It was initially thought that older races in Europe, like the British Grand Prix, might be removed from the calendar but the number of races was increased to eighteen. According to Bernie Ecclestone the move was to increase global reach in Formula One because of the steady tightening of restrictions on tobacco advertising in Europe and elsewhere also being a factor. This move saw the percentage of races held outside the traditional European home climb to around 50% - meaning that the World Championship truly deserves its name. 2004 was Michael Schumacher's most recent of his record seven World Championships. Formula One saw Ferrari fade out of sight as the Renault team dominated and Fernando Alonso forged a lead. In the latter part of the season McLaren were significantly the stronger team with consistently better results and a win tally of 6 from 7 races. Their early record of poor reliability had meant that catching Renault in either Drivers' or Constructors' Championships was a tall order. 2005 marked the end of the V10 era in F1. To keep the cost down the configuration had been made mandatory in 2000 (and although only V10s had been in use 5 years earlier Toyota were planning on entering Formula One with a V12 and had to delay their entry by a year to redesign) so that engine builders would not experiment with other configurations. Over this period, the statistics show a supremacy of the Renault and Ferrari engines, with Renault clinching six Constructors and five Drivers championships as engine suppliers for Williams and Benetton from 1992 to 1997, and their first ever Drivers and Constructors Championships in a 100% Renault car. The most significant system introduced in Formula One was the Kinetic Energy Recovery System which stores energy created by braking that is then channeled to the driver's car, with few well funded teams having tested this technology the previous year but it was too experimental and all of the KERS systems needed more development to the point where none of them would be ready for 2009. The major manufacturer teams were starting to disappear rapidly because of the worldwide economy crisis. In addition to Jaguar which had left in 2004 Honda departed 4 years later because of uncompetitiveness with Toyota and BMW both departing entirely 5 years later. Renault changed their involvement to engine supplier in 2011, and Cosworth departed entirely as an engine supplier. 3 years later Formula One entered its second turbocharged era. Australia was the location of the end of the first and start of the second. The series is being run under the most radical engine regulation changes since 1995. All cars entering any Formula One championship race must run with 1.6 litre single turbocharged 6-cylinder engines with a rev limit of 15,000 rpm. New car regulations will also be enforced, and the minimum weight regulations will be raised from 642 kg to 690 kg. Mercedes and Ferrari will be producing engines for this new formula but Cosworth will not be participating in the era. Honda returned to supply McLaren with engines for the first time since 1988. Nigel Mansell started the 1992 Formula One championship with five straight victories. At the sixth round of the season in Monaco he took pole and dominated much of the race. With seven laps remaining he suffered a loose wheel nut, was forced into the pits and emerged behind Senna's McLaren-Honda. Mansell set a lap record two seconds quicker than Senna and the pair duelled around Monaco for the final four laps, but Mansell could find no way past and finished behind the Brazilian. Mansell became the most successful British driver of all time when he won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, as he surpassed Jackie Stewart's record of 27 wins with his 28th. Mansell was crowned the Formula One World Champion early in the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, which clinched the Drivers' Championship. Mansell could not fit into the narrow McLaren MP4/10 and was deputised by Mark Blundell for the opening two rounds. Mansell's car was completed for Imola where a Eddie Irvine clash saw him finish 10th, and out of the points. At the Spanish Grand Prix, Mansell became frustrated over the handling and decided to retire because of him not wanting to make the numbers up and with no hope of the McLaren MP4/10 being competitive. Although teams in motor racing series are generally numbers, Mansell has been associated with the number 5 for many years. This began when he joined Williams in 1985 and was allocated car number 5. For the first four races of the 1985 season, both Williams cars had white numbers but from a distance the numerals "5" and "6" resembled each other. As a consequence it was decided to give Mansell's car a red number. Murray Walker began describing Mansell's car as "Red Five" which lead to Mansell retaining the red coloured number throughout his first spell at Williams. On his return to the team in 1991, Williams had retained the number 5 car, allowing Mansell to race as "Red Five" once again. When he returned to Williams for four races in 1994, the team's numbers were 0 and 2 as they had won the Drivers' and Constructors' titles the previous year but would not run #1 because of Alain Prost having retired. Damon Hill drove the #0 while Mansell raced the #2 with the number on the nose of the car painted red. A new rule for the 2014 season allowed the drivers to pick a unique car number that they will use for their entire career from 2 to 99. The regulations further stipulated that a driver's number had to be clearly visible on their car, the numbering system having been partially based on the Constructors' Championship finishing positions from the previous year. Lewis Hamilton picked #44 which was the same number that he used during his karting days. Hamilton became the World Champion by winning the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix because of Nico Rosberg's car encountering mechanical trouble during the 55-lap race. Hamilton, in the podium interview, said, "This is the greatest day of my life." At the end of the year Hamilton was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. 1 year later Hamilton secured his third Drivers' Championship by winning the United States Grand Prix. Just before the 2016 Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton was pictured riding a motorcycle in New Zealand on the public road whilst using a mobile phone which is against the law. Though triple world champion Jackie Stewart urged Hamilton to apologize, Hamilton refused to comment and 4 months later went on to win the Austrian Grand Prix despite having a last lap collision with Rosberg. 7 days later Hamilton completed a hat-trick of home wins by triumphing in the British Grand Prix to cut his Mercedes team-mate's championship lead. In 2014 Hamilton changed his helmet colour for the first time since his karting days using a white helmet with red stripes in the shape of his design from 3 years earlier. The following year Hamilton added two stars to his helmet, adding a third star after the 2015 United States Grand Prix to celebrate winning his third championship Category:GN15 CWY